Theater review: Hidden sounds, fantasy world come to life in CoHo Theater's 'Kid-Simple'

View full sizeCasey CampbellSarah McGregor as Moll and Joe Bolenbaugh as The Foley Artist, in "Kid-Simple."

There are sounds out there we can’t hear -- the crack and crunch of a heart breaking, the utterance of a person telling a lie (you can tell by their breathing).

In “Kid-Simple, a radio play in the flesh,” currently on offer by CoHo Theatre and call in sick productions, a precocious high schooler and intrepid inventor, Moll (played by Sarah McGregor), has created a machine called the Third Ear, which picks up these hidden sounds and more: She’s even added one of her body parts to her amazing mechanical device. In this odd fantasy world in an unnamed time, Moll listens to an adventure story on the radio each week with her square but sweet parents, and the story begins to parallel her own situation. Sort of.

The Mercenary (J.R. Wickman), disguised as a hormonally charged teen-age boy, sets out to distract the feisty Moll, while he steals the precious machine from under her nose. He’s also stolen her heart, and once she gets over him she sets off on a zany road trip, taking along with her Oliver (R. David Wyllie), the last boy virgin in the 11th grade.

His virginal status provides a ploy to attract evil so Moll can flush out the villain. And sure enough, the Mercenary, first disguised as a satyr and later as a luscious fig tree, can’t resist. As Moll and Ollie forge rivers and peer into canyons, the Mercenary is drawn closer, as his evil minions, Number One and Number Two, look on. Moll is a sort of supergirl — although she can’t fly, she can fashion a raft out of scraps to cross the river, thanks to her inventors’ backpack full of alphabetized items.

Above the set, a gleaming junk-encrusted wall designed by Chris Rousseau and kollodi, a radio-style sound man or Foley artist (Joe Bolenbough), provides myriad sound effects for Moll’s outer and inner world. In case we don’t understand them, projected subtitles describe each sound (example: “the sound of rage, muted by a pillow”). Bolenbough creates many of these literally, with humorous effect. In fact, this multimedia production, deftly directed by Tom Moorman, depends after awhile on sounds as part of vocabulary, and there’s a grand logic to this amid playwright Jordan Harrison’s clever theatrical inventions.

The cast is uneven, but mostly satisfying. As the attractive narrator, Cassie Skauge could have been a bit more commanding. At one point her storytelling diverges sharply from the action onstage, and the character experiences a sort of career meltdown, which has little to do with the story: The audience loved it.

McGregor as Moll has to demonstrate her bad temper at times, and these moments feel false and out of control. But Torrey Cornwell as Moll’s mother is right on the mark, all sweetness and light yet with an ominous edge. Cornwell also plays the shadowy Number Two and the woman in the radio soap opera with compelling versatility. Keith Cable is delightfully square as Moll’s dad, deliciously sinister as Number One and the villain in the radio piece, and Wyllie is appropriately delicate and sullen as young Olllie.

But the show is virtually stolen by Wickman, who sports horns and hooves with insouciant lust as the satyr; provides a greasy monosyllabic charm as Garth the teen; and later exudes indolent charm as a tempting fig tree set on charming the virgin.

Harrison’s play has been criticized for lacking warmth. This production appeared to leap that hurdle, even though many of the characters follow stereotypes, to some extent. The cacophony of voices, from television commercials, public announcements and what-have-you, a cascade of Mozart’s music, the throb of a vintage Rolling Stones number and a firmament of general sounds that reflect the junk-encrusted visuals on stage, add much humanity. The gap between thought and speech that Moll pursues is tough to describe and tough for her to pursue, but the idea gives us something to ponder.